On the train to Sydney recently I was reading Norman Lindsay’s autobiography My Mask. One of the photos in the book was of Lindsay and his son Ray aboard the three masted sailing ship the Joseph Conrad, when it visited Sydney Harbour in December 1935.
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Rivers Paterson (nee Staines) was born on the day her father Thomas drowned in the Bell River, between Molong and Wellington, in the central west of New South Wales. Thomas Staines was an ex-convict; a former blacksmith and farrier from Leicestershire. He was transported for life in
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Charles Spring died at Mudgee hospital just before midnight on Friday, August 27 1938. He was 72, and had been in failing health for some time. Mr Spring had requested that he be cremated at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney. Next day his grieving widow Georgina boarded the
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Someone asked me recently why people often speak of artist and author Norman Lindsay (1879 – 1969) as having lived at Springwood in the Blue Mountains, when the property is actually in the neighbouring village of Faulconbridge. One reason is that Norman himself always wrote his address
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I have been revising a piece I wrote about pioneering women and their appreciation of Australia’s native flora. Not surprisingly, the Blue Mountains featured heavily. Once the first road was constructed from Sydney through to Bathurst in 1815, intrepid settlers followed. Then the iron ranges echoed To
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This piece began as a short, selective list of Blue Mountains villages. However, owing to the demands from residents of those left out it became somewhat longer. 😎 OK, HERE WE GO… I am cheating and listing the towns and villages of the Blue Mountains alphabetically rather
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When Australian artist and writer Norman Lindsay first saw what was to become his home near Springwood in the lower Blue Mountains of New South Wales, the sandstone cottage was sadly neglected. The floor boards were full of white ants. Nevertheless, Lindsay reported to his wife (and
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